Re: Terms of Endearment

Chris writes:

>I was thinking about terms of endearment, how many people have included
>them in their conlangs so far?
The only one available at the moment in Géarthnuns is "íansöls",
"heart-love". I have every expectation, however, that others will
evolve.

>There seem to be a surfeit in english:
>love, dear, darling etc. I don't know how many there are in other
>languages, I think french has mon cher / ma cherie but I don't know if
>it has many others
The infamous "mon (petit) chou", which usually gets translated as "my
(little) cabbage", though I think "cream puff" is more a propos. "Ma
puce", "my flea", has a nice diminutive tone to it. Back in college,
one French guy used to call his main squeeze "my bloody witch" (ma
sorcière sanglante?) in English. Dunno if that was his own little
idiosyncracy or if that's a popular endearment -- Christophe?

>While I was thinking about that I got onto "to love" and "to like". Do
>many natural languages distinguish between the two? French doesn't (je
>t'aime = I like/love you),
"Je t'aime" is "I love you"; "Je t'aime bien" or "Je t'aime beaucoup"
is "I like you".

>  but spanish does (amo = I love, me gusta(n) =
>I like (lit it pleases me)),
French does have the word "plaire", though its usage is not as
extensive as "gustar".

>How many people have the distinction in their
>conlang?
Géarthnuns has this distinction -- and also between liking things vs.
liking people. Loving "things" is not a natural expression in
Géarthnuns. In Géarthnuns, you can't *love* ice cream.

Kou

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